Sooner than Later
by pandasize
Summary: Post-ME3 (Destroy Ending). One-shot capturing a moment from Garrus and Pandora Shepard's last days.


A/N: A million thanks to theherocomplex and servantofclio for their beta work and friendship.

* * *

"That's my girl," Garrus hums softly. _Proudly._ The screen across from his bed shows old vids of Commander Pandora Shepard's glory days, all part of the extranet marathon about the savior of the galaxy. There's a shot of her in boarding the _Normandy_ for the first time. Another of her arguing with the Council. Even security camera footage of her shoving a merc out a highrise window. "Harsh, but he deserved it," Garrus says again in the same tone, with the same expression, over a century later.

Shepard nods, but her husband doesn't so much as throw her a glance.

The Alliance broadcast moves on to some of her old interviews, and Shepard wonders if it's time to change the channel. Maybe they could watch the sunset over by the expansive window. Sunsets on Palaven are notoriously beautiful. Captivating. Harmless.

But Garrus had_ insisted _on watching this televised special.

"She had a migraine that day," Garrus says to no one in particular. The Dalatrass on screen is giving curt, thin-lipped responses as a younger, bald-headed Shepard zealously advocates for krogan expansion rights. "But rebuilding the galaxy was always as important to her as saving it." There is a gleam of admiration in his foggy blue eyes. "She toughed it out."

A stream of sunlight beams through a part in the shutters. Dusk's last warning. Shepard opens her mouth to suggest moving over to the window, when the sad thrum of Garrus' subharmonics interrupts.

"She toughs everything out."

Another silent nod while Shepard swallows against the tightening in her throat. She can't stop her fingers, spotted and wrinkled, from edging towards his talons, knobby and gnarled.

But the instant they touch, Garrus snatches his claw away. He grips his wrist, nestled in a tangle of IVs, as though he'd been burned. Distrust permeates his glare.

"What are you doing?!" he barks.

Garrus never used to yell at her unless it was to take cover. Garrus was as patient as a sniper should be, and tender as the thoughtful lover he was. But that was a long time ago, and not even the best medicine and fanciest accommodations at an elite, Hierarchy-funded nursing home stops aging and death.

Turians and humans have different physiologies and ailments, but dementia was a commonality. The turian equivalent of Alzheimer's was just as ugly as its human counterpart. Although scientific advancements had significantly delayed its onset to correspond with lengthening life spans, death was still inevitable. Decay was decay, whether it was the skin, muscles, or brain. At 155 years, not even the former Expert Reaper Advisor escapes the cycle of life.

And so, while they wait for death to come and collect him, Shepard watches her husband become a stranger to her, as she is already to him.

"Don't _touch_ me," Garrus hisses as an angry child would.

"Sorry," she mutters to appease his unpredictable temper. She doesn't have to look to feel the flicker of his eyes over her small, brittle frame. There will be anger at first, then confusion, and if she's lucky, things will snap back into place as if nothing had happened at all. Shepard readily eyes a nearby dextro candy bar and the datapad containing a calibration program that really calibrates nothing (it's just a game that keeps him occupied). These are the easiest distractions for the most manageable reactions. But if she's not lucky—

"Where is she?!" Sudden alarm poisons Garrus' tone. She's not lucky today. "Where is Shepard? Where did she go?!"

The familiar bite of his talons sinks into her arms to join a host of other bruises, but Shepard won't call for the nurses. _Yet._ She won't see him restrained again. _I can still help him,_ she truly believes.

The interview clip is over, replaced by an Asari commercial for fringe enhancement buzzing in the background, but Garrus is long past watching. He's searching the room with his eyes, as if he's noticing where he is for the very first time. "Where is Shepard?!" he repeats, panicked. "You let her go!"

"She's gone to do some shopping." It is a lie she'll apologize for later, if he remembers this at all. "She'll be back later."

"No, she won't!" The sting of his clutch begins to hurt. "You let her go! You let her go without me!"

"Go where?" She doesn't recognize her own voice anymore, but she desperately wants to understand. To alleviate his pain.

"To the beam! _To __the beam!_" His mandibles tremble with every shaky word. Shepard has never regretted more than she does now. "You let her _go alone__!_" He stumbles out of bed, shattering a tube of water in the process, IVs pulled painfully taut. "I need to get to her! She can't do this alone!" It takes all of Shepard's remaining strength to pin him back against a mountain of pillows.

This was once a fun, sensual game. How it hurts now to hold him thus.

"Shepard is _fine,_ Garrus." She soothes, willing herself to hold his frantic gaze. "Don't you worry about her. She's okay. _I promise._"

"Liar!" He bears his yellowed teeth. "She needs me!"

"She does." Shepard feels her strings unraveling. Her chest constricts impossibly tight.

"Then why won't you tell me where she is?!"

"Because…" She doesn't know where the next words come from, but she's frustrated and tired. _So very tired._ "She's at the bar."

"The bar?" He stops struggling.

"Yes, _the_ bar." Shepard hopes the lie spills before her tears. "Just having a drink."

The trembling stops, and mandibles flare into a semblance of a smile. Shoulders relax complacently onto feather and foam. "The bar," Garrus repeats with a faraway look in his eyes. "She's waiting for me."

"She is."

"I'm old."

"You are."

"I'll see her soon."

"You will."

Relief floods her veins when Garrus begins to close his eyes. Her white-knuckled grip is released before she sinks back on the bed, aging another century in seconds. Garrus is asleep within minutes.

Shepard takes a deep breath and watches him dream. She hopes he sees her in his sleep. And when her bones begin to ache with the kind of ache that has no cure, a dark exhaustion settles into her stare. She wonders how much longer she must wait to get to that bar.


End file.
